diff --git a/app/models/invitation.rb b/app/models/invitation.rb
index e600f8a0a..23dcb2c9e 100644
--- a/app/models/invitation.rb
+++ b/app/models/invitation.rb
@@ -2,12 +2,6 @@
 #   licensed under the Affero General Public License version 3 or later.  See
 #   the COPYRIGHT file.
 #
-class OpenSSL::PKey::RSA
-  def to_yaml
-    self.to_s
-  end
-end
-
 class Invitation < ActiveRecord::Base
 
   belongs_to :sender, :class_name => 'User'
diff --git a/config/initializers/patch_openssl_pkey.rb b/config/initializers/patch_openssl_pkey.rb
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ef6b1ddfe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/config/initializers/patch_openssl_pkey.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+#   Copyright (c) 2010, Diaspora Inc.  This file is
+#   licensed under the Affero General Public License version 3 or later.  See
+#   the COPYRIGHT file.
+#
+#
+#
+#Why? as of rails 3.0.4, objects are marshalled by calling to yaml, if it is a text field in the db. since we assume things are strings coming out, and pkey does not seem to define a to_yaml, it was getting set to nil
+class OpenSSL::PKey::RSA
+  def to_yaml
+    self.to_s
+  end
+end
+
+
diff --git a/spec/models/user_spec.rb b/spec/models/user_spec.rb
index a3abdba86..6177a88de 100644
--- a/spec/models/user_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/models/user_spec.rb
@@ -5,10 +5,22 @@
 require 'spec_helper'
 
 describe User do
+
   it 'should have a key' do
     alice.encryption_key.should_not be nil
   end
 
+  it 'the key should marshall to and from the db correctly' do
+    user = User.build(:username => 'max', :email => 'foo@bar.com', :password => 'password', :password_confirmation => 'password')
+    user.save!
+
+    expect{
+      user.reload.encryption_key
+    }.should_not raise_error
+
+  end
+
+
   describe 'overwriting people' do
     it 'does not overwrite old users with factory' do
       lambda {